


Bazaar Editorial 2017-09-12

by Hornet394



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Gen, Official article, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 14:24:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12082920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hornet394/pseuds/Hornet394
Summary: Translation of Harper Bazaar China's article foundhere





	Bazaar Editorial 2017-09-12

**Author's Note:**

> Translating this bcus @Layshands on twitter asked
> 
> I've taken out all the embedded pictures just because it didn't work well with google docs. Definitely recommend going to the original article to look at the photoshoot, Yixing and Lin Yun look absolutely gorgeous.

**Zhang Yixing   Lin Yun | We were never strangers**

 

> This edition of Bazaar lauds its 150th anniversary in its memorial volume, we invite China’s new rising celebrity symbols Zhang Yixing and Lin Yun in front of the camera, and with the penmanship of China’s top writer, scriptwriter, and illustrator in the post-90s author chart, Zhang Haochen, they will together depict a moving urban story that belongs to the post-90s of China. No matter which era you go to, we wish that you can find your own Mr Lonely and Ms Lively, and experience all the blessed encounters in life.

 

_The passing of time is like an extravagant lie_

_There are times of coming together, but there are also times of departing_

 

Time is like a gigantic trap. In the few decades that are quiet and peaceful, you will meet and connect with some people, yet, at some point, you will also have to face departure. In the end, after so many years, there is only yourself and the world.

Mr Lonely’s world is a small attic made of wood, and from the decorations it is clear that this is the house of a man with OCD who is also a germaphobe. The furniture is placed neatly, the clothes inside the wardrobe separated by colour. Even in the drawer of the bedside table, there are pill boxes and contact lenses that are differentiated by month.

 

In his world, time is not linear. When he wakes up from his dreams, it may be noon, it may be night. Why is he called Mr Lonely? It is because he often descends into a state of mind that is frustrating to others. For instance, if there is a lost cockroach that stumbles into the attic, in his brain he will immediately formulate a red zone and a green zone. The cockroach is red, and the neat and tidy furniture around it is green. In his mind he immediately calculates the safe distance between the two zones. In 21 seconds, it will climb onto his favourite indoor slippers.

Besides his stubborn nature, he is also used to being acting in solitude. The large pasture of grass outside the attic is the only place he will leave his house for. On the pasture is a thick and strong tree, just like the one on the poster of the movie “Big Fish”. The leaves are not grown to be luxuriate, the branches sticking out like sore thumbs.

Rarely are there other people on this field, or in the attic. He often sits beneath the tree and stare into the distant town underneath him, just like a quiet painting, until the sun sets.

 

 

This day, Ms Lively’s appearance has shattered his comfort zone. It starts like this. When Mr Lonely got up, he sees a girl with monolids standing in front of the door to the attic. There is a dimple on her cheek as she smiles and says that she has gotten lost, and found this attic really pretty.

Just as her hand is about to touch the rust on the handle, red zones AND green zones and the calculations pop up in Mr Lonely’s brain again. He wants to stop her, and he reaches out a hand, but the girl turns and takes his hand instead, doing a self-introduction on her own volition.

_Life is like the sea, tumultuous and uncertain_

_It is already miraculous that you and I meet_  

Life is like the sea, tumultuous and uncertain. It is already something miraculous that some people meet one another.

That encounter makes Ms Lively a frequent guest here. She would often suddenly appear to startle the deep in thought Mr Lonely, just casually, putting her hand on his shoulder. Mr Lonely can’t bear it, so he keeps hiding from her. Ms Lively insists on taking a look at his house, so he’d put his whole body against the door in resignation.

“Stop hiding, let’s be friends.”

“I don’t want any friends.”

“Why?”

 

Mr Lonely doesn’t answer her and just closes the door. Walking through his house, he thinks that what he had done was a bit overboard, so he goes back and opens the door by a sliver of a crack, and he sees Ms Lively outside, smiling radiantly. He says, “I don’t want to talk about my life from the beginning again.”

Some people appear in your world without warning, some lightly, a face in the passing crowd, some heavy, as imprints engraved in memory.

 

Ms Lively clearly belongs to the latter.

Mr Lonely wakes up from a nightmare of continuously falling and crashing. All he remembers is the deep sense of loss and confusion in his heart, his brain a jumbled mess. He looks out to the sky outside the window, the clouds are burning red. Ignoring his empty stomach, he walks straight out, and even his white shirt is burnt into the orange colour. He tilts his head up, it hurts, and part of that hurt actually comes from the fact that for the past few days, the girl had not appeared.

 

It is strange, really, Ms Lively appears at the right moment with a bag of candies and taps him on the shoulder. Mr Lonely gives her a disgusted look of “why are you here again”, but the girl sits down and gives him the candy from her hands. He says he never eats these junk foods, but she rebukes, you call them junk without even tasting it, the goodness of this world is killed by people like you who act only on stereotypes. If you eat it, you will become happier. Ms Lively adds. Mr Lonely gives her a look, and with doubt, takes one and puts it inside his mouth. Immediately he pukes it out. It tastes like the sewer.

He’s covering his mouth, he sees Ms Lively laughing, and he can’t help but laugh as well.

 

Every flavour jelly beans become the beginning of their relationship. They spend every waking hour together. Finally, Mr Lonely allows Ms Lively into the attic. She becomes part of Mr Lonely’s mental world, the only moving green zone. If you were to ask him why, not even Mr Lonely himself can give you an answer. The girl in front of him seems to have some sort of special magnetic field. Someone has turned on the lights for you over this world. Someone has swept away the dust collating over your heart. You treat those who are worthy of it well, and you guard over life’s rises and falls.

 

 

If we talk about liveliness, Mr Lonely has asked her once. “You like liveliness so much, you must have a lot of friends.”

“For now, except for you, there’s no one else.”

“Ah?”

“You don’t need a lot of friends, you just need the few right ones. True, deep friendship does not need the illusion of liveliness.”

Miss Lively is in fact not really lively. She does not like life in the city. Perhaps she has seen through the illusory gestures and passions. Sometimes, when you are good to everyone, you don’t know who is your real friend. Friendship is a selfish desire, you can never distribute friendship equally amongst everyone.

_Mr Lonely’s nightmare_

_Miss Lively’s disappearance_

Mr Lonely’s nightmares are becoming more and more clear, and he often descends into unexplainable fear and daze. Miss Lively understands his condition, and proposes to have a game of hide and seek. She has Mr Lonely cover his eyes, and she whispers in his ears, Promise me, you must find me.

The words come true, and Miss Lively is gone. He upends the entire attic and the field, and he does not see any traces of her. Mr Lonely wanders underneath the big tree, and suddenly his mind is clear, and his time with Miss Lively becomes particles of his memory. Perhaps, he thinks, the girl had never existed.

Perhaps, it was a spontaneous fantasy after he had seen that cockroach that morning.

 

His eyes become more and more puzzled, lost, even empty. He silently sits on the ground, lost in thought, his shadow stretched longer and longer by the setting sun.

When he gets up, he sees a strange girl standing in front of the attic.

The girl with the monolids smiles, and her dimples are made even more apparent. She says that she is lost, and found this attic really pretty.

Mr Lonely asks, puzzled, “Have we... met?”

“First time, my friend.” She said.

That is how the story ends.

 

 

_Why did they become_

_A pair of Mr Lonely and Miss Lively_

That year, Ms. Lively was sitting in the backseat of Mr Lonely’s car, and they were driving from the town onto a meandering mountain path. On the road, a sudden squirrel jump had leaped out in front of them. Mr Lonely jerked the steering wheel to one side, and the whole car flew off the edge of the mountain. Ms. Lively was safe and sound in the backseat, but Mr Lonely’s head was hurt by mountain rocks that had made it through the windshield.

Holding the diagnosis results, she had cried so tearfully, covering her mouth. The writing on the paper is messy, and on it states: The patient’s hippocampus is damaged, the present diagnosis is short-time memory loss syndrome.

 

 

Before the car crash, they had made a promise to go to their secret base - the attic on the top of the mountain, to see the sunset. That attic preserved the most precious memories of this friendship.

Some memories only stay because of their longevity. As for those that are short, fragmented, they are all gone, and can only be brought up over and over again.

 

Miss Lively hands Mr Lonely a bag of candy and sits down next to him. She says, if you eat it you will be happy.

Time has made it harder for people to understand how to start intimate connections with others, because time has already kept all its true friends. Life is like the sea, tumultuous and uncertain. It is already miraculous that you and I meet.

Let’s not talk about things like you make me a better person. Just one sentence - at least now, when I am at my best, I have you to share this with. In “Kite Runner”, it says, For you, a thousand times over.

Some people go to the place where you would meet with them, simply to find you.

 

**Eight young super stars will interpret four episodes of youthful romance. “We were never strangers”complete micro film, to be seen this saturday!**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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